The Middle Leeson Street

If you had your ears switched on last year, you probably heard someone banging on about a band from Townsville, Australia called The Middle East. I spent a considerable portion of the year listening to “Blood” over and over like a lunatic. They are without doubt the band at the top of my must-see list for this year. Their performances at SXSW last month were universally praised and rightly so.

The band were confirmed for Oxegen recently, which was always likely given that they had already been listed on the T In The Park line-up for the same weekend. But this morning, there was great or awful news, depending how this fits with your personal schedule. The Middle East will make an earlier visit to our anxiously waiting capital with a gig in The Sugar Club on June 26. If you have any kind of sense at all, you will be marking that Saturday evening on your calendar in big, permanent marker. Tickets priced at a stupidly cheap €13.50 go on sale this week.